There is somthing sweetly innocent about this at first blush, but it could easily be mis-used. Fertile recruiting ground for somthing more sinister?...<br><br>Pagan scouting group takes root<br>By Jeff Wright<br>The Register-Guard<br>Published: Wednesday, December 28, 2005<br><br>Five-year-old Jade Rainsong jumps out of his mother's car, looking sharp in his green pressed shirt, tan pants and brown hiking boots. "I've got on my SpiralScout uniform and mud-whompers!" he boasts. <br><br>Jade, new to the whole scouting experience, races to the door of his 4-year-old buddy, Joey. Inside, the two boys and five other youngsters - three of them girls - prepare for a Saturday afternoon of crafts, snacks and fun. <br><br>But this is not their parents' Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts - immediately evident when these kids gather around a coffee table and light candles in solemn tribute to earth, water, fire and air. <br><br>No, this is the SpiralScouts - the pagan version of learning outdoor skills and earning badges. <br><br>Begun in 2001 in Washington state, SpiralScouts has grown into a movement serving families of various minority faiths in 20 states, Canada and Europe. The newly created Emerald Earth Seekers in Eugene is the organization's third "circle" in Oregon, following the lead of similar groups in Salem and Portland. <br><br>Karen Glickman is co-leader for the Turtlemoon Hearth, whose members include her son, Jade. Raised near Los Angeles, Glickman was herself a Camp Fire Girl for five years, and remembers loving the camping trips and arts and crafts. <br><br>"My mom was a co-leader, so I'm kind of following in her footsteps, but in sort of a pagan way," she says. <br><br>But why enroll her son in SpiralScouts instead of, say, the Boy Scouts? Glickman says the Boy Scouts often have a Christian flavor and, as their name suggests, is for boys only. "I like the alternative religion and the fact that it's co-gender," she says of the SpiralScouts. <br><br>(The Boy Scouts of America is not strictly a Christian group - there are Scouting opportunities for Jews, Buddhists, Muslims and other faith adherents - but does profess a belief in God. The private organization permits women, but not "avowed homosexuals," to serve in leadership roles.) <br><br>Glickman, an artist whose work focuses on goddess imagery, says she stumbled across SpiralScouts as she researched pagan parenting resources. She was thrilled to learn that the group originated with the Aquarian Tabernacle Church - a pagan community based in Index, Wash., northeast of Seattle - that she had visited while staying with friends several years ago. <br><br>The church is known for such pioneering accomplishments as getting the pagan faith known as Wicca recognized as an official religion in Washington state prisons, and establishing a Wiccan theological seminary. <br><br>Designed as a nature lore and woodcraft program, SpiralScouts is intended for families of any minority faith, or no faith at all. Like more traditional scouting groups, the organization offers pins and badges that youth can earn in such areas as music, nutrition, community service, academics, birding, drumming, cooking, gardening, geology and global ecology. <br><br>There are three program levels: Fireflies for children ages 3 through 8, SpiralScouts for ages 9 through 13, and PathFinders for ages 14 through 18. Just getting off the ground in Eugene, the organization has three "hearths" ("dens" in Cub Scouts lingo) for Fireflies and a waiting list of older youth hoping to join the first SpiralScouts hearth once they find an adult leader. <br><br>At the recent Turtlemoon Hearth gathering, 7-year-old Aubrey Gomes-Pereira is asked to lead the other children in the Fireflies Promise: "I promise to serve the wise ones, to honor and respect Mother Earth, to be helpful and understanding toward all people, and always keep love in my heart." <br><br>After a game in which they pretend they are frogs - hopping, ribbeting and eating flies - the children move to a larger table for the day's craft project: making neck cords out of green, tan and brown strands that will become part of their official SpiralScouts uniforms. <br><br>"The three colors represent diversity, and we're going to braid them into unity," co-leader Val Gomes-Pereira, mother to Aubrey and Joey, tells the children. <br><br>Eight-year-old Trinity Meyer braids her cord diligently, then proudly wraps it around her neck. But she looks disappointed a few minutes later when she learns that the next task she was awaiting - sewing a first badge onto her uniform - must wait for a future meeting. <br><br>Trinity and her younger sister, Clover, have responded positively to the SpiralScouts concept, says their mom, Nancy Silvers. "They really like it, they're always very willing to come - and they let me know when they don't like something," she says. <br><br>Silvers says she grew up as a marginal Presbyterian who spent a lot of her childhood exploring nature or hanging in the family barn with her horse. When she discovered Earth-centered pagan traditions in her late teens, "it just spoke to my heart," she says. <br><br>The chance to share that with her daughters, and likeminded parents, is a blessing. <br><br>"This is definitely a good fit for us," she says. "It's a good reinforcement of our family values." <br><br><br><br>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>SPIRALSCOUTS<br>More information<br>Locally: Contact Karen Glickman at
karen@rainsongart.com or Mariamma Jones at
jmariamma@yahoo.com<br>Nationally: Visit
www.spiralscouts.org<br> <p></p><i></i>